It's hard to think of a medieval set show with actors speaking in anything other than British accents. Didn't costener try it with Robin Hood with mixed results?

That was the opposite problem. Everybody spoke with British accents, including Costner...but he was so terrible at it, halfway through filming they told him to stop. And his American accent in that context stood out as much as his crappy English accent.

I think if EVERYBODY spoke with American accents, people would get used to it pretty quickly. If it were a mish-mash, that would really stand out.

English accents in medieval shows doesn't really raise my eyebrows, since there actually WAS an English language in the Middle Ages. But I laugh when they always have Romans speaking with English accents, centuries before Anglo-Saxon came along, much less English. And that gets to the core of the matter...it's not about what accent is appropriate; it's purely cultural. We have been trained to associate English accents with olde-timey stuff.

That was the opposite problem. Everybody spoke with British accents, including Costner...but he was so terrible at it, halfway through filming they told him to stop. And his American accent in that context stood out as much as his crappy English accent.

I think if EVERYBODY spoke with American accents, people would get used to it pretty quickly. If it were a mish-mash, that would really stand out.

That was my thinking. Although, in Once Upon a Time, you do have a mix, and I don't feel it stands out. Maybe the American accents work because the characters are living in Maine too. (they should have New England accents, but I digress.

That's actually kind of a weird thing about American TV. So many shows take place in New York, but rarely do the characters have New York accents. My favorite was NYPD Blue where Sipowicz clearly had a Chicago accent and was a NY cop.

That was the opposite problem. Everybody spoke with British accents, including Costner...but he was so terrible at it, halfway through filming they told him to stop. And his American accent in that context stood out as much as his crappy English accent.

I think if EVERYBODY spoke with American accents, people would get used to it pretty quickly. If it were a mish-mash, that would really stand out.

English accents in medieval shows doesn't really raise my eyebrows, since there actually WAS an English language in the Middle Ages. But I laugh when they always have Romans speaking with English accents, centuries before Anglo-Saxon came along, much less English. And that gets to the core of the matter...it's not about what accent is appropriate; it's purely cultural. We have been trained to associate English accents with olde-timey stuff.

Hey Rob, remember "Yonda lies the castle of my Faddah."

To use I, Claudius as a good example of accent usage, having the high class Romans speaking in upper class British accents and the lower classes using co-responding accents makes sense. It made it clear who was where in the social order.

There was a miniseries in the 80's based on the Last Days of Pompeii, and while most of the Romans were Brits, there were some Americans using their own accents but for a purpose. I remember Ned Beatty played a guy from the provinces who made a lot of money and was trying to get into society. His accent had him pegged as a pushy outsider from the get-go.

To use I, Claudius as a good example of accent usage, having the high class Romans speaking in upper class British accents and the lower classes using co-responding accents makes sense. It made it clear who was where in the social order.

There was a miniseries in the 80's based on the Last Days of Pompeii, and while most of the Romans were Brits, there were some Americans using their own accents but for a purpose. I remember Ned Beatty played a guy from the provinces who made a lot of money and was trying to get into society. His accent had him pegged as a pushy outsider from the get-go.

Well to be fair, I Claudius was a British production. That would have made it even MORE shocking to have that particular show with the characters having an American accent.

There's been plenty of shows/movies that took place in ancient times where the characters did not have British accents. Ben Her and The Ten Commandments come to mind. I do think this being in a time that resembles the Middle Ages, that an English accent seems normal based on what we have been conditioned to (forgetting that there were similar feudal systems throughout Europe and not all of them spoke English ).